Old Spice Ad With Creepy Moms Goes Viral

Old Spice is making the nightmares of young men everywhere come to life with its latest commercial. “Momsong” depicts teenage boys falling in love, while their mothers hover creepily nearby singing: “Old Spice sprayed a man of my son.” One mother hangs on to her son’s car while riding in a laundry basket, while another disguises herself as the school janitor with a mask frighteningly reminiscent of Michael Myers.

The video has amassed more than 1.2 million views since the Procter & Gamble brand uploaded it to YouTube and on its Facebook page on Jan. 3; the commercial hit the airwaves during an NFL broadcast last night.

Many fans wondered why Old Spice didn’t wait for the ratings bonanza of the Super Bowl. According to a P&G spokesman, the campaign launched to promote its new product line of Re-fresh Body Sprays, which are arriving in stores this month. Old Spice doesn’t have an ad buy in for the Super Bowl yet, he added.

The commercial explicitly targets a younger demographic (compared with another Old Spice viral hit, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”), along with moms, who do much of the buying in a household and can influence purchasing, said the spokesman. The sprays are designed to last all day, in part to address P&G research showing that 3 out of 4 young men and 83% of young women consider overspraying to be an issue.

The commercial, produced by advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy in Portland, has both 30-second and 60-second spots, along with two 15-second commercials (“Bowl” and “Tree”). The agency confirmed that the ad’s music, the subject of speculation on some online forums, is original.